Wolfgang, where did your identification of the Pepys ballad with Laws P 35 come from? I thought than mine in the internet broadside index at ZN1624 was the original, but maybe not. Do we have any observers here who might know about Parish Registers in Hocstow, England and who might like to search them for Anne Nicols and Francis Cooper to see if they were real people? The ballad was printed late 1684 to 1696.

G. M. Laws, Jr., didn't know about the Pepys ballad, but did an extensive study of different versions, giving some 18th century texts in 'American Balladry from British Broadsides', pp 104-22, 1957.

The tune of the Pepys ballad was "Alack for my love I [must] die". This comes from "The Downfall of William Grismond..22 of March, 1650" (ZN1998). In Scots traditional versions he is called "William/Willie/Wully Graham/Gray" (elsewhere "Guiesman"), e.g., 'Grieg-Duncan Collection', II, #190 (only 1 copy with tune).

"Banks of the Ohio" and some other murder ballads were probably modeled on this. "Banks of the Ohio" seems to have been originally "The Banks of the Old Pee Dee" (or Peedee), but there's more than one river by this name in the U.S. There'a a Pee Dee river in South Carolina that flows into the Atlantic about two thirds of the way from Wilmington to Charleston. The town Pee Dee is a little east of Florence, SC.